THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE

THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE

Some women are born mothers. They may not play with dolls or brush their hair, they may not play house or being a teacher or having a tea party.

However, they start reading the signs of distress in others early and take care of other people while still being the ones needing care themselves.

When she was a kid, Ella had never thought of getting married or having kids. She was bored to tears when her cousins wanted to play the bride or when they wanted to be pretend- moms with their baby dolls.

Her parents had never emphasized the importance of those things in life. They taught her that being well-mannered, intelligent, kind-hearted and academically successful were very important things.

To be honest, Ella’s mother did hope that her daughter would make an amazing match thanks to her flawless beauty, education and good housekeeping she had been taught as well.

The status of a future groom had to be very high, along with his good looks, huge success and a lot of money. She wanted the best for her daughter.

Her father wanted her to find a good man who would protect her and understand her and be her ally while weathering together all kinds of storms. He wanted her to be happy. Simple as that.

Ella caught the writing bug quite early. At 15, she started writing for the Youth Section in the local paper and her articles were causing quite a stir in her small town version of Payton Place.

They had a great editor who was teaching them not be afraid of tackling serious topics, so her father often got calls from the Mayor who would complain about Ella’s writing.

„Listen, I know she is smart and everything but could she write about boys and lay off my political campaign?“

Her father was proud and told him his daughter was just writing the truth. He made a collection of Ella’s press clippings and framed them.

When she had won the national poetry award at 16, Ella started daydreaming a lot. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone with whom she could share her future success one day?

While she was practicing her acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature using her mom’s duster, she profusely thanked „my gorgeous husband whose money helped pay for the nannies for our beautiful three children, the nannies who were my best allies, making it possible for me to write in peace and spend quality time with my kids, giving me strength and energy and the ability to love them and my husband the most“, she finished the speech.

That was actually the first time she had mentioned „her three kids“.

She had been keeping a diary she was nine. That day, she wrote the following

„I can’t wait to meet that beautiful man who will give my three beautiful children: Victor, Alexandra Victoria, and Felix Alexander!“

As the time went by, the economic crisis hit her family. It went without saying that Ella was going to college and that was that.

Her parents talked to her and she knew: the degree was the main goal, everything else gained was a bonus.

Ella’s first relationship lasted for 19 months. He was a guy from her hometown who had to quit his studies and come back home because his father had died suddenly. The family needed money.

They spent an hour on the phone every night before going to sleep. He admired Ella’s ambitions and the whole package in general. Ella was in love even when he told her he was seeing another girl „just for fun“. She accepted that because her eyes were not on the player but on the puck – her degree. The player was free to do whatever he wanted until she scored.

When she started her second year, he became impatient. His mom was urging him to get married and start a family but Ella had three more years to go.

They started having fights – he was pressuring her into leaving college and getting married.

Ella resisted. She was top of her class, she had no intention of leaving it.

„I have no intention of waiting for you for ten more years!“, he shouted in the phone.

„I have no intention of studying for that long!“, she shouted back.

When he started playing the card of him being her first, she bought two condoms, traveled all night to get home, called him, and made a good use of those two condoms.

Then she dressed and left. The three beautiful children were not meant to be had with him.

It was a bitter pill but the player was kicked out of the game once he called her to ask for her help – his „sidepiece“ (an awful label!) claimed she was pregnant. Ella knew it was a ruse.

Love or not, she had to leave him behind.

„What am I going to do without you?“, he almost cried.

She gave him a cold look despite her heart breaking into a thousand pieces.

„You are going to do the right thing and marry the liar and I am going back to college.“

And she was right – his future wife had taken pills to stop her period and gave birth a year after Ella had graduated Summa Cum Laude, in less than four years!

Her next big relationship was big indeed, and she could see him as the father of her children.

However, it ended abruptly, leaving Ella in the dark. She had no need for closure, ghosting was closure enough.

That breakup hit pretty hard. Ella spent the next four years focusing on her postgraduate studies, work and fun.

She started working for an international bank and during one of their weekend resorts, she met the son of their Credit Manager.

They hit it off immediately.

For her first date, he took her to the nearby lake after midnight, champagne and everything, and held her in his arms so that she wouldn’t muddy her stilettos. Their whirlwind romance lasted three years. Their compatibility in many areas was sky-high, their parents got along and the proposal was inevitable.

In December the following year, when her doctor told she could be pregnant, she was happy but unsure of his reaction.

“Come on, pregnant lady, come to our favorite café to celebrate! I am going to be a daddy!”

She sighed with relief. She could finally take her eyes off the puck and watch the player. She had always been stylish and it was so easy to imagine herself as a glamorous pregnant girl, wearing stilettos, traveling and shopping.

Then two months later, when she was in the shower, she felt a pull in the pit of her stomach and something pretty solid and bloody fell on the bathtub floor. Ella scooped it in the plastic box and took it to her Ob-Gyn.

“Miscarriage”, he said matter-of-factly.

“Good thing it’s like a clean cut so there is no need to clean you up. Just take these pills to prevent potential fever or infection and you’ll be fine!”

When her fiancé asked about the appointment, she lied it had been false pregnancy.

The next two years were hard. She threw herself into many activities and applied for so much additional work that another miscarriage was not surprising.

Ella broke off the engagement without any explanation, letting him think whatever he wanted.

Her doctor thought – the key word being “thought” – she might have been dealing with endometriosis and prescribed some heavy hormones.

The first two months she looked like Jessica Rabbit. Then she started looking like a Michelin logo. However, the problem was not the looks but how sick she was feeling the whole time and decided to quit the “therapy” on her own.

It had taken three years to have her body cleared off of the medication she didn’t need and, of course, she didn’t have any endometriosis. She faced the doctor and he was embarrassed.

“I thought it could be…”

“There is no “it could be” with such serious stuff!”, Ella retorted icily.

She was so sad and on the verge of depression. She loved kids. She was yearning to care for at least one child, whatever the gender, “just, please, God, let it be healthy and alive!”

But how? She avoided relationships like a plague and wanted a child so badly.

She got angry every time a parent treated their baby roughly and interfered. She would calmly offer to help them out until they finished whatever they were in the middle of doing. It wasn’t easy for them but babies were not to be blamed.

And then God decided to bestow his grace on her – he sent her Philip.

She was hesitant in the beginning, but Philip completely changed her life. She hadn’t felt that protected and secure in God knows how long.

He was extremely handsome and a successful businessman but that was nothing compared to his tenderness and a big heart.

He made her happy. He ran her errands when she was too busy to get out of the house. In the end, it was easier to move in together.

Ella had never known a relationship could be so easy and stress-free. They could sit in companionable silence for hours and recharge. They could make love and still have enough energy to go out and dazzle people, basking in the glow of their happiness.

She felt relaxed but this time it was so easy to forget the puck and the player.

Philip had also completely redefined her concept of a great human being, let alone man. He was reliable, confident, protective but not controlling, loving, anticipating her needs even before she knew she had them. Above all, he respected her and thought she was a genius, smarter than Tesla and Einstein together. He bragged about her brain and achievements to everyone willing to listen.

She knew he'd make a great husband and father. Old dreams resurfaced and daydreaming turned into living the dream.

During their vacation in Italy, they got pregnant. Philip seemed calm on the surface but ecstatic inside. He showed all kinds of love and care.

Ella was calm and relaxed but one morning on the toilet brought her to hospital. Another miscarriage.

“Your uterus is full of benign growths”, told her the new Ob-Gyn.

“They are inoperable but let’s wait and see what happens next time”, the woman continued.

“Just relax and don’t worry, I’ve seen women with bigger issues conceiving!”

Philip was the calming force. He spoke to the doctor and realized the growths were the product of that completely unnecessary “therapy” Ella had received.

He pressed charges against ger former doctor. More women came up with similar stories. Totally healthy, then a sudden diagnosis of endometriosis, the hormonal therapy banned in all European countries and then, uterine growths and no baby.

The doctor was charged with malpractice and paid the compensation but that was all. Having him publicly exposed was not enough for Ella but she could not fight his strong connections in court. In addition, she didn't want her name published.

After another six months, Ella got pregnant again. Another loss.

After a year, she had another pregnancy. This time she felt different. She had migraines, all-day sickness, she was dizzy and sleep deprived. When she entered the third month, Philip joked.

“Well, I am definitely the only one who could have made that baby stay inside!”

Ella gave him a feeble smile.

“Yeah, I just have no idea if I’m going to survive the whole nine months!”

God had other plans. At the end of her first trimester, she experienced another loss.

The physical pain and discomfort were nothing compared to her emotional state. She either cried or just stared at some point in space.

Philip tried to cheer her up.

“Love, we can adopt”, but she shrugged the thought off. She wanted HIS baby. She wanted to look at the child and recognize Philip’s smile, or sense of humor, or any of his qualities. She wanted a little Philip, or Philippa.

The doctor told her that her uterus was full of all kinds of benign growths that they were treating the baby as a foreign object and simply got rid of it. Her uterus had become her biggest enemy.

“Sorry, but we cannot do anything”, she patted Ella’s hand.

The thing was that nobody knew about her struggle to become a mom, not even their parents or siblings. On the surface, they were still that glamorous couple, full of mutual respect ad love but Ella felt she needed to let him go.

She loved him so much that she had no idea how she was going to play it but she felt she had to.

“Listen, staying with me will deprive you of being a father and you're going to be a great one, I know that”, she said through her tears. Philip tried to stop her but she wouldn’t let him.

She said she could not live with herself if she had to see him look with yearning at people with children and the same went for her.

He had tried for a couple of years to change her mind, but she stood her ground. She knew he would miss out on being a parent and that was his fervent wish as well, she simply couldn’t allow that.

She confided in one girlfriend who tried to console her in all possible ways,

“Look”, she said, “I love my son, really. Remember how cute he was when he was little? I know he loves me but he's an adult now so trust me, motherhood is overrated!”

Ella regretted not being able to hex people.

“Coming from a person who HAS a kid!”

“Trust me”, her friend said, “they love you but leave to have their own lives and you are left to look forward to their calls, texts and occasional visits! Don't regret it!”

Then she added:” But to think you made that Philip go! Girl!”

Ella chucked her pillow at her.

Some time had passed. Ella got a scholarship in Australia. The therapist she had found there helped her realize that not having kids was not something that defined her.

“But I was born to be a mother!”, Ella cried.

“Yes, but you do it by taking the vulnerable and the weak under your wing. Not many women would do that for other people” her therapist replied.

When she returned, she was a new woman, she looked better, she felt better.

She started a new job at university and was very popular among her students and colleagues.

Still, she always forgot how to breathe when she would hear a child calling for their Mom. She would never be called Mom. She would never have a daughter she could teach so many things and with whom she would have teenage rebellion fights and mother-daughter talks. She would never go to her son's game and scream with joy over his score. She would never plan kids' birthday parties, go on family vacations, watch them grow into independent human beings.

She would never experience PTAs, getting ready your kids for school trips, dates, proms, getting their hair rid of lice, taking care of them when they had measles or a fever, being there for their highs and lows as their biggest cheerleader and critic.

Moreover, she would never share parenthood with someone she still loved so much.

She sighed. She had to reset every time. Every time her heart almost stopped dying of grief.

One day, she was in the office when one of her colleagues went in. Erica was a sweet woman but on a verge of a breakdown, handling two small kids on her own since her husband had been deployed.

Ella was chatting about the forthcoming new curriculum when Erica interrupted her.

“It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?”

Ella blinked, taken aback.

“You strut around the campus in your high heels, deliver lectures, all charming and smiling, not a care in the world!”

Then the unexpected blow came.

“It’s great to have no family obligations, right? I bet you've never wanted children!”

Ella almost choked. All the repressed feelings flooded her.

She had taken several deep breaths and said:

“Erica, I know where you’re coming from but trust me, you have no idea about me.”

Erica looked resentful.

“Yeah, right, looking young and beautiful despite your age and snaking your way around…”

“Erica, let me stop you right there. I’ve had too many miscarriages that it’s a wonder I haven’t miscarried my brain!”

Both women were silent.

Then Ella closed the door, sat down and told Erica her story in a nutshell.

Erica looked glum and embarrassed.

“I am so sorry! I had no idea! God, it must have been so hard for you!”

Ella raised her palm.

“Please don’t tell anyone. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me or ask me questions I am not comfortable answering.”

Erica promised and hugged her.

Ella let out a deep sigh.

Philip became a father in the meantime. She was happy for him but also deeply hurting because her Victor, Felix or Alexandra could not be theirs.

The names she had written down when she was a teenager became the main characters in her award-winning novel. Philip was assigned the role of the widowed father. As far as she was concerned, Ella’s motherhood was dead, therefore a widower.

However, life was still full of other possibilities. There was her niece after all, the love of her life. Her birth illuminated Ella’s darkness.

Her heart still ached every time she saw a little girl or a boy that could have been hers, but she would blink the tears away, sigh and took her niece to the park to play. There was still a chance to be genuinely happy after all.